Complex Organics Bubble up from Enceladus

Data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft
reveal complex organic molecules originating from Saturn's icy moon Enceladus,
strengthening the idea that this ocean world hosts conditions suitable for
life. Research results show much larger, heavier molecules than ever before.

Powerful hydrothermal vents mix up
material from the moon's water-filled, porous core with water from the moon's
massive subsurface ocean - and it is released into space, in the form of water
vapor and ice grains. A team led by Frank Postberg and Nozair Khawaja of the
University of Heidelberg, Germany, continues to examine the makeup of the
ejected ice and has recently identified fragments of large, complex organic
molecules.

Previously, Cassini had detected
small, relatively common organic molecules at Enceladus that were much smaller.
Complex molecules comprising hundreds of atoms are rare beyond Earth. The
presence of the large complex molecules, along with liquid water and
hydrothermal activity, bolsters the hypothesis that the ocean of Enceladus may
be a habitable environment for life.

Such large molecules can be created
by complex chemical processes, including those related to life, or they can
come from primordial material in some meteorites.

At Enceladus, it's most likely they
come from hydrothermal activity driving complex chemistry in the core of the
moon, Postberg said.

"In my opinion, the fragments we
found are of hydrothermal origin; in the high pressures and warm temperatures
we expect there, it is possible that complex organic molecules can arise," Postberg
said.

The organic material is injected
into the ocean by hydrothermal vents on the floor of Enceladus' ocean - something
akin to the hydrothermal sites found at the bottom of the oceans on Earth,
which are one of the possible environments that scientists investigate for the
emergence of life on our own planet.

On Enceladus, bubbles of gas,
rising through miles of ocean, could bring up organic material from depths,
where they could form a thin film floating on the ocean surface and in cracks
of vents, in the interior of the moon, beneath its icy shell.

After rising near the top of the
ocean, the bubbles may burst or otherwise disperse the organics, where they
were detected by Cassini.

"Continuing studies of Cassini data
will help us unravel the mysteries of this intriguing ocean world," said
Cassini Project Scientist Linda Spilker of
NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a
cooperative project of NASA, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Italian Space
Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena,
manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The
Cassini spacecraft deliberately plunged into Saturn on Sept. 15, 2017. JPL
designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter. The radar instrument was
built by JPL and the Italian Space Agency, working with team members from the
U.S. and several European countries.